might be "any day realized in the laboratory; and that there was "no chemical peculiarity forbidding" that realization. In those thirty-five years scientific chemistry has advanced, with colossal strides, at a rate of progress previously unknown and unimagined. Its triumphs are attested by the number and character of its investigations, its improved methods, its enlarged nomenclature, its ever-increasing wealth of results. Its history during the present century presents a continuous series of remarkable discoveries the number of non-metallic elements has been increased by the addition of iodine, bromine, and selenium; that of the metals has been nearly doubled; the carefully examined compounds have increased a hundredfold; "a vast array of substances" has been compounded or decompounded; but, towards that border-land which separates the organic from the inorganic-if such a border-land there be-this triumphant chemistry has not advanced one single step. "Chemists," we are told, "do not doubt their ability" to do that which has hitherto mocked all their efforts. Thirty-five years ago they were equally untroubled by doubt, and equally destitute of achievement. They then believed the great desideratum might be "any day realized in the laboratory." And they "do not doubt" it now. But still they do not" realize" it. They have not "the least evidence" in support of their belief: they have still less of "satisfactory experimental proof." But who is this "they"? It is not the chemist: it is the "philosopher." The chemist knows better. He knows that notwithstanding an altered classification of "organic" and "inorganic," yet between his compounds on the one hand, and the construction of organizable matter on the other, there still stands the impassable barrier which demonstrates that the affinities of life and living matter belong to a chemistry of which we know nothing, and which, to strive to imitate is but to strive in vain. The name of Dr. Rudolf Virchow has been familiar to scientific Europe for nearly forty years, as one honoured amongst the most honourable. It was he who, at the Conference of the Association of German Naturalists and Physicians at Munich, in the autumn of 1877, led the reaction in the high places of learning against the dogmatism of science. And this is what he says on the "scientific levity" of "spontaneous generation":— "I grant that if any one is determined to form for himself an idea of how the first organic being could have come into existence, of itself, nothing further is left than to go back to spontaneous generation. But of this we do not possess any actual proof. No one has ever seen a generatio æquivoca really effected; and whoever supposes that it has occurred is contradicted by the naturalist, and not merely by the theologian. If it were capable of proof, it would indeed be beautiful! But whoever recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all the attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for the generatio æquivoca in the lower forms of transition from the inorganic to the organic world, will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in any way accepted as the basis of all our views of life." 1 An "astounding hypothesis," "not supported by any evidence," 2 "absolutely inconceivable," s and "utterly discredited." 4 Such is the "scientific levity" of Spontaneous Generation. 1 "The Freedom of Science in the Modern State," p. 39. 2 Dr. Carpenter, ut sup. 3 Mr. Darwin. 4 Dr. Virchow. |